or how to be comfortable and safe while maintaining complete ineffectiveness and remaining unchanged.

The second title is a bit wordy, don't ya' think? Me too.

As much as I am moving forward in life, I am also looking backward to see where I've been and what I've done. This has caused some startling realizations that have moved me to reconsider the path and direction of my life. Hence, all of the existentialistic type of writing.

I blame God. Respectfully, of course, but He is the One moving in me to redirect my trajectory in life and He is the One responsible for this new focus.

What has been most enlightening about the past five years is that for the first time in my life I am realizing the cure to my sickness. The disease that has caused me to strive to become comfortable, seek happiness and still remain in a tension of guilt and despair is dying.

How could this be? How could someone who follows Jesus and wants to change the world be someone who is stuck in a tension of right living characterized by guilt and fear? Is this the life Jesus wanted me to live? What can I do to break free of this disease? Where did this disease come from in my life?

The sickness and disease that I was experiencing had its moments of remission and its moments of immobilizing debilitation. It was characterized by trying harder and doing more but usually ended up leaving me feeling guilty, lacking energy and traumatized by the effort. The more I tried to become better or tried to erase the patterns of sickness or tried to force happiness or tried to manufacture contentment... the more I tried the worse it got. I would fall to my face exhausted begging to die with no power left but to surrender hoping that Someone could rescue me from myself. In those broken moments, depression and shame were my allies; hypocrisy and guilt were my friends.

Then came the freedom. In the brokenness, I found strength. In the wounded parts of my soul, life and energy renewed me. God rescued me.

This was the cyclical pattern of my life. I lived this way for 27 years. Who on earth would want to beLIEve that religion could help them when this is what it had done to me?

Please understand that I am overstating my point here to make a point.

See, I was a zealous, conservative, somewhat orthodox, protestant Christian for most of my life... yet slightly rebellious. I was trying to make my behavior change without proper guidance on how to REALLY change. The rebel in me knew that something did not add up. For most of the twenty years since I accepted and willingly chose to follow Jesus, the conservativism of my religious upbringing did not seem to "fix" the pervasive sin issues in my life. However, I was convinced in my heart, mind and soul that Jesus offered the type of life characterized by freedom from such burdens!

So why wasn't I experiencing it? Why were my experiences such peaks and valleys- extreme spiritual highs followed by spiritual lows? What was wrong with me?

The advice I was typically given may help explain some of it: 1- pray more; 2- read the Bible more; 3- find "better" friends (i.e. Christian friends). The more I tried more, the more I failed and got frustrated. Something in me (God's Spirit) was constantly insisting that there was a better way to live. Not to mention how horrible is it that I could not have certain friends because "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch (that analogy was used a lot in upbringing)." Where's the "love your neighbor" in all of this? How is any of this showing or growing love?

In college I did experience some of this freedom and life that Jesus taught. However, it must have been "wrong" and sacrilegious because I was talking to people who did not like God or Jesus. I dressed myself like an unmade bed, smoked cigarettes, had long hair and played in a rock band. We all know that "good" Christians don't do that... any of that. Yet, that was who I was. I was engaging people who had a sincere curiosity about spiritual matters and my religious upbringing told me that I should not associate with those people. You know. The people that Jesus liked to talk to about the new reality that He was going to establish through His death and resurrection.

Please understand and let me make this point clear, the ends do not justify the means. Just because I still needed work and had several sin issues in my life, God would have rather had me be a healthier person (one who is whole), but He used what I was willing to give Him at that point in my life to reach people that might not have been willing to listen to a clean cut, "my life is perfect" kind of guy. God worked through me. God uses us to make an impact no matter what phase of life we are in if we are willing. God uses the "less than perfect" to reach others who are "less than perfect." I am not the point, Jesus is. My life should always point others to Him.

Five years ago, I started to realize that I had been striving for mediocrity through the lens of religion that bore the name of Christ. My upbringing had incorrectly taught me that Jesus offers us a life of comfort and safety. I became aware through some of my past experiences that the opposite is true. The freedom that Jesus gave me was freedom from myself, my fears, my destructive tendencies, my hurt, my pain... not so that I would live in a bubble and try to recruit other people into my bubble. Rather, Jesus gave me this freedom on the inside so that I could engage the same things outside of me in the world I live in with His power, with His love and with His grace. This requires me willing to interact with the hurt and pain that is alive in the people I encounter so that they too can experience the freedom that Jesus' grace and love offers.

How did I finally break free of this disease? What did I do that made the sickness subside? Nothing. Well, something. I knew that sitting back passively and hoping that God would change me without my involvement wasn't going to work- I tried that. I also knew that trying harder wouldn't enact change in my world or my life either- I tried that. However, I can do one thing... stay connected to God and let Him work in me. That is how God facilitated change in me. That is how the thing that religion could not "fix" started to get fixed. That is the one thing that has always worked in the past but I was unaware of it.